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Monday, October 23, 2017

Croaking Fane

What is it? DCC Adventure #77 for 3rd level characters by Michael Curtis

Because the best place to read a DCC adventure is on the subway!

Spoilers Below!

In case you missed it from my review of Frozen In Time, Michael Curtis is pretty awesome, and I'm a fan. That said, this is another ribbiting adventure full of of ideas worth stealing, even if you aren't going to run it straight.

As you might guess from the title, this adventure focuses on a religious site of a toad god, though not, as you might guess, Bobugbubilz.... No, this is about its progenitor, Schaphigroadaz who was long ago overthrown by its spawn. But now, Schaphigroadaz is looking to make a comeback! Not that the adventurers know this. All they know is that suddenly their temple seems to be suddenly abandoned. That can only mean "ready to be looted" rather than "something terrible has/is about to happen" of course.

This is one adventure that really takes a central theme (frogs) and hops with it. You get frog-mummies, frog-gargoyles, frog-vampire bats, flesh eating tadpoles, flesh eating tadpole swarm, mutated frog cultists, and more all inside a giant frog temple. You'll never see a more toadaly themed adventure. Seriously, it's 100% kermited to it!!

While a lot of DCC adventures tend to have potentially significant impact on campaign worlds going forward, this one seems to spend a bit more time world building. Sure, most give some background before the adventure, but this one just seems to have a bit more, not just in the intro, but sprinkled throughout. And as this is just one temple, there's the possibility of there being many more fanes of Schaphigroadaz out there!

It is a relatively short adventure, at a mere 14 pages, and the entire upper level is one big room, but the contents make it worth it. Certainly the cost is worth it for the night of gaming it'll provide.

And while I haven't mentioned it in my other reviews, the art and the maps are all wonderfully evocative. It's a shame that the players don't get to enjoy the maps till after the adventure is over!